Marathon man

Shortly after Samuel Žbogar took up his posting as Slovenia’s deputy permanent representative to the United Nations in 1997, Kosovo became the focus of diplomatic attention in New York. A shady rebel group calling itself the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) had begun attacking Serbian security forces in the province, whose Albanian majority had never reconciled itself to Serbian rule.

Following the end in 1995 of the brutal wars in Croatia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the increasing ruthlessness of Serbia’s anti-insurgency campaign created anxieties among the western powers. When a flurry of diplomatic activity failed to produce a settlement, NATO intervened by attacking Serbian forces in Kosovo and targets in Serbia proper. By June 1999, Kosovo had been removed from Serbian control, and became a United Nations protectorate in all but name.

Žbogar, who today is the European Union Special Representative in Kosovo, recalls many a night spent discussing the crisis with fellow diplomats in New York, especially during the drafting of Security Council Resolution 1244, which paved the way for Kosovo’s eventual independence (which it declared in 2008) by putting it under UN administration and ending the formal sovereignty of Serbia over the territory.

This was a baptism of fire for Žbogar, a career diplomat whose previous postings had all been in Ljubljana, with the exception of two years in Beijing and a year in Belgrade. But it was also a test for Slovenia, which had gained independence from Yugoslavia only in 1991. In 1998-99, at the height of the Kosovo crisis, Slovenia took its first (and to date, only) turn as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council. Its representative on the Council was a respected legal scholar on minority rights named Danilo Türk, who had been one of Žbogar’s university professors. Türk subsequently became assistant secretary-general for political affairs of the UN and, in 2007, Slovenia’s president.

“During our presidency in August of 1998, we tried to bring the whole Kosovo issue onto the agenda,” Žbogar says. “But at the time NATO was very reluctant to bring it to the Security Council. Everybody was very reluctant to discuss it, but then it just got worse. The situation unravelled and led to 1244 and Kouchner and Unmik,” he says, referring to the UN administration under Bernard Kouchner. “I never thought at that time that I would ever serve in Kosovo.”

“Of course we are in a new era now,” says Žbogar, who took office as EUSR in January. “Unmik and Kouchner was the first era, then you had the second era with the International Civilian Office and Pieter Feith.” Feith was the Dutch diplomat who was Žbogar’s predecessor as EUSR, while simultaneously leading the ICO.

The third phase began last week (10 September), when the ICO closed down and Kosovo’s government declared the end of supervised independence. “This is the phase where we come in as the European Union with the European agenda for Kosovo, and it’s nice to be part of it,” Žbogar says.

Žbogar took office at an auspicious moment. “The stars are aligned,” a diplomat says. “Pieter [Feith] is leaving [as head of the ICO] and the EU has consolidated its presence under the EUSR. Before, you had the EUSR and a separate Commission office, but now it’s clear that there’s one EU guy who speaks for the whole. It’s good that Samuel is there.”

Žbogar, according to officials familiar with the situation, has managed to maintain good relations with the European Commission, whose staff make up the bulk of the 80-odd people in the EU office in Pristina; with Catherine Ashton, the EU’s foreign policy chief, to whom Žbogar is accountable; and with Kosovo’s government under Prime Minister Hashim Thaçi, who used to be the political spokesman of the KLA during the war. Indeed, all Žbogar has to do if he wants to see Thaçi is cross the backyard of his office: the EU’s office in downtown Pristina shares a compound with the Kosovo government. “He has the access and the relationships that he needs to do his job,” an official says.

Fact File

CV

1962: Born, Postojna, Yugoslavia

1986: Graduates from University of Ljubljana with BA in political science

1987: Joins the Republican committee for international co-operation, Ljubljana

1990: Third secretary in the department for neighbouring countries in the Yugoslav ministry for foreign affairs, Belgrade

1991: Joins Slovenian diplomatic service as counsellor

1993: First secretary of Slovenia’s embassy in Beijing

1995: State under-secretary and director of department for Africa, Asia, Latin America and Pacific, ministry for foreign affairs, Ljubljana

1997: Deputy permanent representative to United Nations, New York

2001: State secretary, ministry for foreign affairs, Ljubljana

2004: Ambassador to the United States, Washington, DC

2008-11: Foreign minister

2012-: EU Special Representative in Kosovo

But it is more than simply a confluence of external factors that has helped Žbogar establish himself in Pristina. His affable and low-key manner is an asset in a country where many are fed up with high-handed international officials. Žbogar also says that he likes Pristina – many foreign officials complain about the quality of life there – and that he is considering moving his family there once his 17-year-old son finishes high school. Žbogar’s other children are 20 and 11 years-old and live in Ljubljana with their mother, an arrangement made easier by direct flights between the two capitals.

Zbogar enjoys the occasional jog through Pristina and during his time in Washington, DC ran marathons for humanitarian causes such as support to landmine victims in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Žbogar’s profile as a former foreign minister of an EU member state also helps in his current job. Not only does that mean that he understands EU decision-making; as one of their number until last December, when Slovenia’s centre-left government was voted out, he knows most of the current EU foreign ministers personally. This is important given that five member states still have not recognised Kosovo.

In a sense, Žbogar’s current post merges his previous roles, as a career diplomat and a politician. His first diplomatic job was in Slovenia’s committee for international co-operation, in 1987-90, when Slovenia was still part of Yugoslavia. After an interlude in 1990 with the Yugoslav foreign ministry in Belgrade, he entered the nascent Slovenian foreign service and rose through the ranks. After his posting to New York, he served as state secretary in the foreign ministry – in effect, deputy foreign minister – before becoming Slovenia’s ambassador to the United States in 2004.

In 2008, Žbogar moved from diplomacy to politics and joined the new, centre-left government of Prime Minister Borut Pahor as foreign minister. Pahor and Žbogar, his senior by one year, had met in their teens when they attended Nova Gorica high school, hard on the border with Italy. His perfomance as foreign minister was solid but unspectacular, according to observers. Slovenia’s most controversial policy at the time, the blocking of Croatia’s membership talks with the EU, was managed from the prime minister’s office, not Žbogar’s.

“He is a good combination of bureaucrat and politician,” says Ulrike Lunacek, an Austrian Green MEP who follows the situation in Kosovo. (Lunacek applied for the EUSR post, but failed to qualify because she was not a member of her country’s diplomatic corps.) “He is sober and deals with issues in a matter-of-fact way, but at the same time he lets on that there is a real engagement behind this.”

“It’s important that the EUSR has the positive qualities of a diplomat, but dares to say things that a politician would say. He drops hints to the Kosovars that he supports the state of Kosovo – these are my words, not his – and that he is dealing with the institutions of a state.”

Bora

The people of Serbia is well aware of Slovenian political hypocrisy. This article which tries to glorify “Slovenian diplomacy” is just another reminder. It’s also good to remember that Slovenian diplomacy is mostly governed by Washington, as we found out a few years ago from the documents leaked out in Slovenian press.

Posted on 9/20/12 | 2:45 PM CEST

Bora

The people of Serbia is well aware of Slovenian political hypocrisy. This article which tries to glorify “Slovenian diplomacy” is just another reminder. It’s also good to remember that Slovenian diplomacy is mostly governed by Washington, as we found out a few years ago from the documents leaked out in Slovenian press.

Posted on 9/20/12 | 2:45 PM CEST

Bora

The people of Serbia is well aware of Slovenian political hypocrisy. This article which tries to glorify “Slovenian diplomacy” is just another reminder. It’s also good to remember that Slovenian diplomacy is mostly governed by Washington, as we found out a few years ago from the documents leaked out in Slovenian press.

Posted on 9/20/12 | 2:45 PM CEST

Bora

The people of Serbia is well aware of Slovenian political hypocrisy. This article which tries to glorify “Slovenian diplomacy” is just another reminder. It’s also good to remember that Slovenian diplomacy is mostly governed by Washington, as we found out a few years ago from the documents leaked out in Slovenian press.